IFC Training Small Business Owners in South Sudan to Help Them Gain Managerial Skills

Juba, South Sudan, June 15, 2013 -- IFC,
a member of the World Bank Group, is supporting a stronger private sector
in South Sudan by training small business owners from a number of sectors,
helping them gain the managerial skills they need to grow their businesses
and run them more efficiently.

Fifty South Sudanese businessmen and women
who are clients of Equity Bank South Sudan were trained on IFC’s Business
Edge Program in areas including accounting and finance, marketing, and
productivity skills. This training, which ran from June 10-14, follows
an IFC financial literacy seminar in January that assessed the training
needs of 300 entrepreneurs in the country.

IFC Director for East and Southern Africa,
Oumar Seydi, said, “IFC is helping small business owners in South Sudan
improve their financial literacy so they can strengthen their operations
and, ultimately, access the credit they need to grow. Supporting smaller
businesses is part of IFC’s broader strategy in South Sudan, which aims
to help the young country build a strong and a diverse private sector.”

Business Edge is an important part of IFC’s
strategy to support smaller businesses in South Sudan, and across Africa.
The interactive product has already helped more than 100,000 entrepreneurs
in emerging markets around the world improve their skills and profitability.

As part of its work in South Sudan, IFC has
helped establish a business registry so businesses can more easily formalize,
and has supported reforms have cut the time it takes to establish a business
in the country to only about two weeks.

South Sudan is also one of eight countries
supported by IFC’s Conflict Affected States in Africa Initiative (CASA),
which is helping countries recovering from conflict strengthen their private
sectors, create jobs, and attract investment.

Equity Bank Group has a presence in Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and South Sudan with a network of over 180 branches
across the region, and a total of 8 million customers. IFC and its partner
Equity Bank South Sudan will soon train another fifty small business owners
in the country.

About IFC IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is
the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private
sector. We help developing countries achieve sustainable growth by financing
investment, mobilizing capital in international financial markets, and
providing advisory services to businesses and governments. In FY12, our
investments reached an all-time high of more than $20 billion, leveraging
the power of the private sector to create jobs, spark innovation, and tackle
the world’s most pressing development challenges. For more information,
visit www.ifc.org

About Business EdgeTM

IFC Sustainable Business Advisory Services
is supporting the growth of small and medium enterprises. Working with
partners in Africa, IFC has helped thousands of entrepreneurs access the
finance and skills they need to realize their potential. Business Edge™
is a face-to-face IFC training system that helps SMEs more easily access
markets by strengthening their management capacity. The training can be
customized for specific countries and regions in Africa. For more information,
including a full list of our corporate partners and accredited training
firms, visit www.businessedge-africa.com.